In a comment piece on its website, Xinhua reported that funds in Beijing, Yunnan, Guangxi and a number of other provinces are under increased pressure to balance the books following the order to raise pension payments.

It cites a report released by the Social Insurance Administration Centre in August, which found six provincial funds in poor financial straits, including three north-eastern provinces that had already struggled with deficits in 2015.

For Jilin province’s pension fund, for example, the current deficit stands at 6.1bn yuan ($908m). In 2015 in Liaoning province, the deficit already stood at 10.5bn yuan ($1.57bn). The required adjustment in payments is expected to cost the fund around 11bn yuan (1.65bn).

To safeguard the adjusted payments, the fund suggested the government should pay subsidies to help plug the gap.

Last year, China’s State Council announced that dividends and income from the country’s state-owned enterprises would be invested into pension and other social security funds, in an effort to overhaul the ailing SOE sector.

The article said that Shanghai and Shandong province have been leading this charge. Shandong has seen investment of 18bn yuan ($2.7bn) so far, while Shanghai plans to invest at least 19% of its municipally owned firms’ revenues into its pension fund. This amounts to more than $1.3bn in additional cash.